n of spirit. It was chiefly
occupied with an account of several _recherchee_ afternoon teas which the
Dyers had held lately at the Manor-house, together with a full
description of the tea-gowns of salmon, canary, and cherry-coloured
plush, lined with _eau-de-nil_ satin, which the Miss Dyers had worn on
these occasions.

Now poor Annie was rather above hankering unduly after tea-gowns, or for
that matter "smart" or "swell" dress of any kind. She liked pretty
things, and things which became her charming person, at their proper
time and season, well enough, but she was not greatly discomposed by
the lack of such adornment, and hardly at all troubled when her
neighbours displayed what she did not possess.

It was because the foolishly exultant gorgeous description, which ought
to have been set to a fashion-plate, carried Annie back with a flash to
one winter's day last year, that it made her heart sore. On the day in
question Annie and Dora, and for that matter Rose and May, acting as
deeply interested assistants, had been tremendously busy and merry in
the old nursery, travestying national and historic costumes in calico.
It was all on behalf of a certain scenic entertainment given in the
Town-hall for the delectation of the scholars in the Rector's
Sunday-school and night classes. It had been a very simple and
intentionally inexpensive affair, and the principal charm to the
performers had lain in the contriving of their costumes. Annie and Dora
had appeared in magnificent chintz sacques--which might have represented
tea-gowns--and mob caps, and had been declared by Cyril Carey, who was
supposed to be no mean judge, a most satisfactory eighteenth century
pair. Cyril himself had broken the rule as to material, and had figured
in the black satin trunk hose, velvet doublet, and lace collar of a
Spanish grandee. But Ned Hewett had stuck to Turkey-red cotton for a
Venetian senator or a Roman cardinal, nobody had been quite certain
which. And Tom Robinson had been a Scotch beggarman, Sir Walter Scott's
immortal Edie Ochiltree, in a blue cotton gown and a goatskin beard,
which she (Annie) had wickedly pretended must have been manufactured out
of tufts purloined from the stock of boas at "Robinson's." Lucy Hewett
had been shrouded in white cotton wool, to represent the Empress Matilda
escaping from Oxford, "through the lines of King Stephen's soldiers,"
under shelter of a snowstorm. Fanny Russell had never looked better than
she